Tools of Social Control? The Southern Poverty Law Center Watch Lists

We must be getting on someone’s nerves. In an obvious move to silence political opposition, the Department of Homeland Security-affiliated Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has again placed those of us who speak out against the United Nations, NAFTA, free-trade treaties, global governance, and other issues on their list of potential domestic terrorists who bear watching.

My goodness. I didn’t realize the United Nations was sacred ground. I guess we better take off our shoes, eh? Perhaps we should bow before the burning bush of global, utopian visions–you know—Agenda 21, Sustainable Development, Smart Growth—bastardized scientism’s hope of salvation?

Global Insecurities

But, then again, perhaps the United Nations and its supporters really do have something to worry about. Early on in the process of laying a foundation for global governance, the Commission on Global Governance noted how pesky populist political movements can be. Henry Lamb, in his analysis of their document, Our Global Neighborhood (1995), cites the Commission’s trepidation regarding possible grassroots resistance to expansion of United Nations authority to impose a global tax, an international criminal court, the redistribution of wealth, the abolishment of private property, and the subversion of elected government by stakeholder groups made up of nongovernmental organizations and private-public partnerships. He quotes:

“Internal political processes within nation-states…may become obstacles to adoption of international standards. In the contemporary world, populist action has the potential to strike down the carefully crafted products of international deliberations…Yielding to internal political pressure can in a moment destroy the results of a decade of toil.”

Lamb goes on to inform us

“The strategy to advance the global governance agenda specifically includes programs to discredit individuals and organizations that generate ‘internal political pressure’ or ‘populist action’ that fails to support the new global ethic. The national media has systematically portrayed dissenting voices as right-wing-extremist, militia-supporting fanatics. Consequently, the vast majority of American citizens have no idea how far the global governance agenda has progressed.”

The Southern Poverty Law Center rather clumsily lumps together those who oppose global governance, property rights advocates, opponents of NAFTA, members of the Tea Party movement, Libertarians, Constitutionalists, those who voted for Chuck Baldwin, militias and other conservatives, with whom they differ, along with racists, fringe groups and fanatics.

Their tactics may seem ham-fisted, but they are nothing new. Indeed, an examination of how these tactics have been used in the past indicates that members of the Southern Poverty Law Center are anything but political incompetents.

Moral Persuasion and the New Environmental Order

Robert G. Lee, a sociologist, and forester, describes how a social control technique known as moral persuasion was used to advance the agenda of radical environmentalism. The reader who is unaware of how radical environmentalism has advanced Agenda 21 and its destruction of private property rights may read some of my past blogs, notably the Infiltration of LittleTown series, Parts 2,3,and4

To go on, Lee tells us that social “control is established by portraying human experience as sharply divided into good and evil, clean and dirty, or pure and impure, and then telling them [people] that they will feel good, clean and pure only when they adopt the ‘correct’ ideas, feelings and actions.” Lee calls this all or nothing kind of thinking totalism. He adds, “Fear also prepares the way for the use of guilt and shame to construct and enforce a new order. Lee describes how totalism was used to enforce the Chinese Cultural Revolution:

“In China, only where guilt and shame failed to bring about ‘correct’ thinking did totalism revert to violence…Guilt and shame can make people shrink and grow quiet, but violence may be needed to cause the most recalcitrant to conform. For this reason, guilt and shame are sufficient forces for transforming most people, and selective violence is reserved for the few who resist such emotional manipulation.”

At the time when Lee published his book (1994), he didn’t think that America had degenerated to the point of using violence to enforce what the State thinks of as correct ways of thinking and speaking, but he did describe how punitive threats of social ostracism, political marginalization, and professional annihilation were used to advance the radical environmental agenda. He showed how loggers and resource workers were portrayed and smeared by the media as stupid, greedy land-rapists inflicting a holocaust on nature, and how this emotional manipulation distracted Americans away from the real issues, stifled the true scientific debate and prevented our finding feasible solutions to environmental problems while preserving liberty. That discussion has yet to take place, and, believe me, there are plenty of people who have a vested interest in making sure it doesn’t.

Ron Arnold, in his book, Undue Influence, informs us that the Wise Use movement, made up of thousands of mom and pop groups, was repeatedly portrayed by media as Aryan Nations allies, militia members and shills for big industry, and how mega-foundations, with myriad ties to members of United Nations nongovernmental organizations, and who knew full well that the Wise Use movement was grassroots, planned to smear it as being affiliated with fringe groups.

No, these tactics are nothing new. In fact, these lies are still perpetuated to slander citizens and lawmakers who actively oppose the complete lock-down of our forests, and the destruction of country towns and private property rights, especially if those opponents garner any popular support and political clout.

Emotional Bondage and a New Era

It appears that the Southern Poverty Law Center hopes to silence their opposition by projecting onto them shame and guilt, by seeking to portray their opposition as outside the mainstream social body, and by portraying their opposition’s views as outside legitimate social discourse and therefore not subject to free speech protection.

These tactics are reminiscent of Saul Alinsky’s advice to budding political organizers:

“Before men can act, an issue must be polarized. Men will act when they are convinced that their cause is 100 per cent on the side of the angels and that the opposition are 100 per cent on the side of the devil.”

This way of sharply dividing good elements of society from bad is an example of the kind of thinking that Robert G. Lee calls totalism.

The Southern Poverty Law Center’s attempts to characterize their opposition as potential domestic terrorists is made even more problematic, however, by the organization’s close working relationship with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), because the DHS is a government agency with police powers.

According to Tom DeWeese, of the American Policy Center, not only does the Southern Poverty Law Center receive funds and grants from the DHS, but members of the SPLC serve on the “Countering Violent Extremism Working Group,” an advisory council to DHS “given the task of creating a plan to reach out to local law enforcement and community activists for training to respond to potential violence and terrorist threat.” Furthermore, according to DeWeese, Laurie Wood, an analyst for the Southern Poverty Law Center, is an instructor for the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center, which is run by the SPLC, and is the most visible link between the DHS, Fusion Centers, and the SPLC.

Obviously, these links give the Southern Poverty Law Center ample opportunity to train state and local police to define domestic terrorists as they, themselves, do. This sends the not-so-subtle message that, if individuals don’t hold the views considered ‘correct’ by the SPLC, the use of violence could be sanctioned. By including these individuals and groups on potential domestic terrorist lists, it defines them as ‘bad’ citizens and therefore worthy of shame. One can’t help but observe that political operators may hope guilt and shame will compel contrary individuals to transform themselves into ‘good’ citizens by censoring and silencing themselves. Additionally, they may now be sending the message that those who persist in speaking out about naughty subjects such as natural law, the Constitution and national sovereignty, especially on the Internet, could now be considered impure elements of our society who need to be purged from the body politic. On a subconscious level, this characterization of ideological opponents may psychologically justify the use of state sanctioned violence. Of course the violence itself would be very real.

One Eye Open

As DeWeese notes, the Freedom Movement is growing. People all over the world are waking up. In Ireland, an unprecedented 100,000 citizens turned out in January to protest a tax on water, which is part of the globalist agenda. There is fierce grassroots opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership treaty that threatens U.S. sovereignty. Just recently, here in Idaho, the State Legislature voted down Senate Bill 1067 which would have subjected Idaho to massive data collection, international laws and foreign tribunal child support orders, all components necessary to global governance. Proponents of the bill are seething, and the mean-mouthing of those who voted against the bill has already begun.

If citizen awakening continues it may threaten to leave global “dreams and schemes and flying machines in pieces on the ground.” My profound apologies to James Taylor.